Their lives had been a hollow, hideous lie,--the lives of his gods. _A fortiori_, the lives of common mortality were false. He seemed to stand apart from the world, dispassionately regarding a race corrupt to its core, and shrinking from the step that would bring him again into its midst. Without Phariseeism he appeared to be the one clean man in a miry universe; the sense whereof brought with it something of the appalling. Whither should he turn without rubbing against contamination? He moved away from the pictures and looked about the room. The familiar, old-fashioned furniture, which the old man loved to keep in memory of her who was once queen of the little space, seemed tainted with the unutterable. He became aware of a physical feeling of nausea. The room reeked. He flung open one of the French windows with an instinctive craving for a breath of the cold December air that was blown across the dripping lawn. He brushed aside his hair, and tried to think. He stood as a judge; that he realised. Those two were brought before the bar, accused of the sin that his organic temperament pronounced unforgivable. The pleas in extenuation would be weakness and folly; and weakness and folly he despised. He was called upon to pass sentence for the shame of which he himself was the child; and in passing it on the sinful pair he was condemning himself to a living death. The man did not see that he had been working all his life towards this doom. The slamming of the door behind him caused him to turn round with a start. His Aunt Agatha came towards him, wrapping a woollen shawl tightly around her lean shoulders. “Oh, how can you have the windows open on a day like this?” she asked shivering. He closed the window in silence and looked at her inquiringly. “Your father has been awake a long time, dear, and is asking so for you.” “A long time?” he echoed. “Yes; before Mr. Usher came. Didn't you know? He addressed the envelope of the letter he sent down to you. Didn't you get it?” “Yes. I got it,” said Sylvester. “What's the matter with you, Syl? Aren't you going to him?” “Oh, of course,” he replied. “Of course--yes.” He went out slowly and mounted the stairs with limbs as heavy as lead. He turned the handle of his father's door and entered. The kind grey eyes of the old man, propped on his pillows, met him as he crossed the threshold, and a smile flickered over the wan lips. “I was afraid you had forgotten me,” whispered the old man, feebly holding out his hand, which his son pressed in silence. Ella was standing in the light of the window, medicine bottle and glass in hand. Until the liquid was poured out, she paid no attention to Sylvester. Then she came to the bedside and looked across at him somewhat defiantly before handing the glass to his father.